But HBO's "Game of Thrones," with its second episode this season, did better than everything else on broadcast TV.

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"America's Got Talent" pulled in an impressive 12.6 million viewers for NBC, which won the prime-time race in total viewers and the 18-to-49 age group.

"Game of Thrones" averaged 9.3 million for the episode "Stormborn," in which Jon Snow agreed to go to meet Daenerys. The audience was down from the record 10.1 million who watched the seventh-season premiere a week earlier.

Other cable standouts were Disney Channel's "Descendants 2" with 5.3 million viewers and Discovery's 'Phelps vs. Shark," part of Shark Week, with 4.8 million. But "Descendants 2" actually reached 13 million when it premiered across six channels, including ABC, Friday night.

The prime-time averages in total viewers: NBC with 5 million, CBS with 4.4 million, ABC, with 3 million, Fox with 1.8 million and The CW with 970,000. They finished in the same order with the 18-to-49 age group.

Favorites of the 18-to-49 age group were "America's Got Talent," a tie between "Big Brother" Wednesday and Thursday, then "Big Brother" Sunday. They were followed by a tie between "World of Dance" and "The Bachelorette," and a tie between "American Ninja Warrior" on NBC and a special Friday edition of "Big Brother." That's a lot of "Big Brother."

Late night: "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" had a big win with its "Russia Week." The CBS show averaged 2.87 million total viewers. NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" drew 2.42 million. Colbert was up 14 percent from the same week last year and had its best week against first-run Fallon since Colbert started on CBS in September 2015. ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" averaged 1.62 million viewers.

With the 18-to-49 age group, Fallon was the winner, Colbert placed second, and Kimmel came in third.

Evening news: For the eighth week in a row, "ABC World News Tonight With David Muir" was tops in total viewers with 7.508 million viewers. "NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt" averaged 7.242 million. "CBS Evening News," which has Anthony Mason as interim anchor, was the choice of 5.569 million.

But Holt won the 25-to-54 age group, which is most important to news advertisers, for the 57th week in a row. Holt drew 1.598 million of those viewers to Muir's 1.529 million. CBS and Mason had 1.202 million.

Cable news: Fox News Channel was tops in prime time in all of basic cable, and MSNBC ranked second.

Fox News averaged 1.930 million viewers to MSNBC's 1.842 million. CNN was No. 10 with an average 952,000 viewers.

MNSBC, however, calculated the ratings on Monday-through-Friday prime time and came out the winner, a first for the network in its 21-year history. By that measure, MSNBC averaged 2.335 million viewers to Fox News' 2.250 million.